Immediately I knew my CBS interview would be friendly just from calling the three alumni contacts to schedule. My interviewer was a treasurer at a public company in the area. We met at his office. The interview was very conversational, much more than I had expected, and it helped to ease any nervousness I had.
Questions (in approximately the order he asked)
1) He had my resume in front of him and asked me to tell him about myself.
2) He asked me a few questions about my current job and we discussed a little bit more about the business model of the company I work for. Then he asked me why I was pursuing an MBA because my job sounded pretty decent.
3) While I was discussing my long-term goals, he asked me “isn’t this something you can do without an MBA?” which I took as an opportunity to talk about Why MBA? Why Columbia? We then discussed the classes I would look into or what concentrations I would focus on.
4) What other schools are you applying to?
5) He said Columbia really likes to focus on leadership and said he didn’t see that highlighted anywhere on my resume. He understood, however, that most younger applicants haven’t had the opportunity to hold real leadership positions, however, we discussed how I work on teams and what I considered leadership opportunities at my current job.
6) At that point it was about 35 min into the interview, and he asked me if there was anything else I would like him to know. I took that opportunity to reiterate my interest in getting an MBA, and Columbia. I specifically mentioned visiting recently and my impressions of the visit and the people I have talked to.
7) Finally, he asked me if I had any questions for him and we discussed his experience at CBS and his career path since then.
8) On the way out of his office, he quickly asked me what my GMAT score was.
Overall it was a nice experience. I felt that it went by a lot faster than I expected and I may not have gotten to say all the things I wanted to say. Knowing that, I would recommend people to look for opportunities to fit in your key points and keep your answers flexible because the same question can be asked many ways. Practice saying your answers out loud even to yourself. It helps to have other people point out body language you would not otherwise notice on yourself.
